The Samaná Americans: African Americans in the Dominican
Republic

The Samaná Americans (Americanos de Samaná) are descendants of African
American freed people who, beginning in 1824, immigrated to the Samaná
Peninsula in Hispaniola—then under Haitian administration—benefiting from
the favorable pro-African immigration policy of president Jean Pierre
Boyer. They constitute the most sizable group of native English speakers
in the Dominican Republic. Aware of its distinctive heritage, the
community, whose singular culture distinguishes them from the rest of
Dominicans, refers to itself as Samaná Americans, and is referred to by
fellow Dominicans as "los americanos de Samaná." Over 80 percent of
Samaná's population is of African American descent. It is estimated that
there are over one half million Dominicans who are descendants of the
African-American settlers. Eight thousand speak the English of their
ancestors.

These African Americans included ship-builders, traders, educators.
They traded across the Caribbean and to the US in their own boats and
maintained ties in the US to sell their products.

Haiti and the U.S.: African American Emigration and the Recognition Debate
University of Texas
Haitian leaders actively sought to attract African Americans to the island and
believed they were crucial to improving Haiti’s economic and political standing.
African Americans became essential players in determining the nature of Haiti
and U.S. relations, and the migration of thousands to Haiti in the 1820s proved
to be the apogee of the two countries’ interconnectedness. Drawing on a variety
of materials, including emigrant letters, diary accounts, travelers’ reports,
newspaper editorials, the National Archives’ Passenger Lists, Haitian government
proclamations, Haitian newspapers, and American, British, and French consulate
records, I analyze the diverse political and social motivations that fueled
African American emigration. The project links Haitian nation building and
Haitian struggles for recognition to American abolitionism and commercial
development.

Leaving their chains behind them: Freed slave colonization and emigration
1/10/2013 Daily Kos: "A number of years ago, I was teaching an anthropology
course on Cultures of the Caribbean. About a third of the students in my class
were of Caribbean ancestry. One day, during a discussion of skin-colorism, and
the divisions between Dominicans and Haitians, a student who had formerly been
very quiet raised her hand. She stood up in class and announced she was "black,"
and Dominican. Everyone in class (including me) went into shock. She was very
white, northern European looking, with a Dutch surname, and up until that moment
none of us had the slightest hint that she was Latina/Dominicana, and certainly
no idea she defined herself as black. She then told her story. She was a direct
descendent of free American blacks who had been sent, by the Philadelphia
Emigration Society, to a place in what is now the Dominican Republic called
Samaná. She explained her phenotype by bringing into class photos of her
ancestors. The women in the family had out-married with merchant seamen from
Europe, and in the space of only a few generations her direct family went from
very dark skin color to whiteness. Eventually her family migrated to the U.S.
She admitted that her sisters (in NYC) did not want their black ancestry
mentioned, and hid it. She, however, not only embraced her heritage, but left
school to go to Samaná to do research and meet up with her relatives there, who
are black Dominicans in complexion and culture."